Window
by Tainted Visions
Summary: Snape looks through a window and sees Lily Evans – in Harry Potter. Based on 'The Prince's Tale'.


**Window **

By: Tainted Visions

Rating: K

Point Of View: First (Snape)

Summary: Snape looks through a window and sees Lily Evans – in Harry Potter. Based on 'The Prince's Tale'.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, Severus Snape, or Lily Evans; If I did, they would be the perfect family. ;)

A/N: Just to clear this up 'you' is a reference to Harry. 

**Window**

They say the eyes are the window to the soul; I had chosen to disbelieve that, and in the end, that was something I wish I could have realized sooner; Maybe then I'd be able to see you other than in the illusion I choose to see you, something beside that stone cold belief of mine that you could never be more like her. Had I let your eyes tell the story for who you really were, I could have let the hatred fallen away. After all, those eyes had been my illusion for all of my life.

It's all I ever see when I open my eyes; It's all I'll _ever_ see. And I am content with that.

It's what gets me through the day when I feel all hope is lost, those times when I just want to lie down and give in, accept the inevitable, and the truth in itself that she is gone. You are all that remains of her. You are the – my – only connection. Those brilliant Green eyes you and she both share, is what gets me through, what I see when I close my eyes to sleep, what I dream of those times when I get to sleep, as most nights I lie awake lost in a reverie of lost memories and everlasting pain; You, in your own way, had caused this, yet as much as I blame you, I know deep down it is not your fault. My mind, however, illusions that truth, blocks it out, for if I were to admit it, I would be losing my pride on top of losing her, and pride – although irrelevant and overrated – is all I have left.

All that remains without that pride... is you. You – the bane of my existence, yet the only will, the only strength, that keeps me alive. Without you, I fear I would have been dead long ago. Just like her. Without your presence to pull me back, and I would have joined her, joined her in death, lay beside her beneath an uncaring and harsh world, a world where the insignificant matter not, fight although there is no battle to fight, give their lives for those who are undeserving. Secretly, I crave this; At night, while the tears fall unbidden down my face, I let illusion of just joining her once again, or had somehow been able to stop him from murdering her possess my mind. Could I have done more?

Although I know it is naive to think of the answer, I still yearn to hear her response, the soft voice that matched the quality of red, rosy lips speak to me in the voice she would use for a child – I wonder if she had ever gotten the chance to use it for you. I remember the way her voice had always calmed me, as I tended the bruises on my neck, or the blood running from my mouth, listening to lamnent of sadness in such beautiful, emerald green eyes...

Just like your's. And your own reflect it.

I see her eyes in pain when I see you are. It's like she is alive again, only through a different person. As alive as they are, however, expressing such emotions as sadness, happiness, and fear, anger still envelopes me when I remember I will never see it in eyes who's face matches the life of one Lily Evans. Lily. The love of my life. Your mother.

I still remember the day you were born, and how I almost automatically despised you. Though I saw the glint of happiness in her eyes as she held you – oh, how you were her everything – I couldn't help but feel as if you had replaced me. Just as James had. _And how you looked like him_. Every last bit of you ... except your eyes. The eyes on your face were green and sparkling with life, just like hers. As she planted a kiss on your soft, black hair, you gave a squeal of delight – of innocence and happiness, although you were much too young to know these feelings. You were a newborn baby, innocent as every child is, but I knew that one day, you would be the spitting image of James Potter. You already were; You had been born to be. I had been determined to hate you.

But I knew too that you were what Lily loved the most. Even after her death, I knew she still loved you, if not more than she already did. Even now, I hate to see the fear in her eyes when I look at you. When I look at you, when you are scared, I see her scared. When I look at you, I see the reflection of a screaming woman in your eyes, hear the cries and pleas for your life to be spared, chills me to the bone when the response from him is the cackle of laughter as he disposes of her without a second thought. I can hear your cries, as he points the wand in your face, the cries of incomprehension and fear, and unknowing in the price that would be paid from your mother's sacrifice. That is what I see everytime I look at you - the reminder of my failure to protect her.

I protect you only because your mother had wished it. I know deep inside, knowing her as I have done, that should I do anything other than protect you, she would be turning in her grave. She gave her deep and dying breath for you, the child from her womb, the existence she had created – who was I to spit in the face of that? Who was I to take that child and let him be harmed, or killed, when it was Lily who had prevented the act herself? Shouldn't I feel obligated to give the same thing? I would die for you, although I thoroughly hate you, Harry Potter. I'd give my life to protect you from the Dark Lord, just as Lily died to give her life to protect you from him.

In death, however, my last wish would be of only one thing – to see you. To see those eyes – Lily's eyes – for one last time, as I too, give my deep and dying breath, an exact parallel of the sacrifice she made for you. And that was exactly what I had gotten. Your face was white in pale, and as I bled out onto the shack's cabinated floor, I still could not be detoured from your presence, as you stumbled forward to my side, looking as if you couldn't speak. I grabbed at your robes, desperate. "Take... it. Take... it." Somehow, even through the rate at which I was losing blood, the jar had been conjured, and it took my last strength to give you those memories, to get them all into that jar. Your face is still white in shock, and for a moment, the illusion I had always seen in your eyes dies like the woman's screams. "Look... at... me.." Your eyes found mine, and was the last thing I saw before death claimed me as his, just as the Dark Lord would soon claim you as his own. I know you will do as you must, and I hope someway, somehow, you live through it all. Just so I know that everything wasn't in vain after all.

And I wish you well, Harry Potter. Should you live, I wish you to the happiness you never had. I know Lily wanted you to be happy. I pray you conquer the Dark Lord for a final time, and avenge both Lily's death and mine. And when your time comes, I hope you appreciate all of those who love and care for you most, the ones who stood their ground to die for you, the lives lost to save your own. And maybe somewhere along the way, I will meet you again, and appreciate the man you've become. Maybe someday I can let go of my pride, and just accept you. You were, after all, all I ever had. Pride was just yet another illusion of mine.

An illusion that had drifted us apart everyday. Perhaps that's what I had always wanted. Perhaps I stopped myself from getting close to you because I couldn't bear to lose another person I loved. Perhaps I felt it your own good, to never know just how much I cared about you, so that when I lied dead at last, the blow wouldn't be nearly so excruciating. Yet, secretly, I still hope you grieve for me. For no one else will. I have no one else.

You're all I ever had.

The window I look through has your – and Lily's – eyes staring at me through the reflection, opaqued from a misted rain. Yet those eyes grow clearer and clearer as the rain becomes harder, as opposed to what I thought would be growing fainter and fainter from the ferocity of it. I know she is coming closer. Through my thoughts, I barely notice the sound of the conductor saying that my destination is coming up soon; Somehow, I had known this already. My eyes gaze back through the window, where nothing but light meets me, along with those brilliant emerald eyes. For the faintest moment, through the light, I see a scrawny, black-haired boy looking lost as he stands alone in the light. I know just by the tug my heart makes it is you. When I blink, however, the image is gone, and the train pulls to a stop. I have reached my destination at last.

I get up from my seat and walk out of the door, only to meet her face and green eyes such like your's staring back at me. My mouth curls into a small smile, and the happiness that lights her face is a perfect reminiscence of you. Taking her hand, I lead her through the light, where I once again capture the image of the black-haired boy, standing not even a foot away, with the smile that could light up a thousand dark worlds. Like her smile. Green eyes like her's. Everything about you is like her.

And had I looked through the window sooner, I would have seen it.


End file.
